The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1887-11-04
THE FIRST CONCEPTION OF GOVERN.
MEkT BY The PEOPLE.


real TO themselves that one hundred
and thirty years before the establish
ment of the United States there was
an effort to turn England into re-
public, undertaken by men whose
ideas were precisely our own-that
Government, namely, should be, in
the immortal phrase, of the people,
by the people aud for the peopleF
The attempt failed because, as yet,
the fullness of time had not come.
1t was, however, magnificent for
the world has never seen stouter
hearts or stronger brains than those
of the Independents-the men nick
named by their enemies Ironsides
upon the field of battle, and in po-
litical conclave, the Rump. In the
fall of 1G41, while the leaders hest
tated, the rank and file of the Iron
sides demanded that King and
Lords should be laid aside; that
each reputable man in the land cast
ing his vote, representatives of the
people should be chosen, who should
convene in a Legislature that over
this Legislature nothing should have
power but the people who elected
it. and that there should be no limi-
tation of this power except as re-
garded liberty of conscience-there
no man should undergo restraint.
A year afterward, at the time of the
execution of the King, all this was
carefully formulated. The leaders,
civil and military, now stood with
the men, and Henry Ireton prepared
an agreement of the people,"
which was, in all substantial res
poets, q draft for an American Con-
stitution. 1t never took effect, be-
cause, in spite of almost miraculous
prowess, two-sevenths could not pre-
vail over tlve-sevenths. A blind
and perverse generation turned back
to Stuart rule, abandoning the
achievement of popular government
TO another time and another land.
But before the nascent freedom was
quite overswept, there came, in
1856, from one of those mighty
strivers, an exposition of the whole
matter of constitutional theory-the
first ever made, and yet one to
which succeeding ages have made
little essential addition. 1t was the
work of young Sir Henry Vane.
Cromwell, long his bosom friend
and fellow-republican, discouraged,
saw at last no way out of embarrass-
ment but to make himself, through
power of the sword, absolute. After
he had thus ruled three years, OPP
portunity came to Vane, disgraced,
and in retirement, to plead with him
for an attempt at different estab-
lishment.
Vane's letter to Cromwell, known
as "Healing Question:" is affection
ate and respectful in tone. 1t is
hard reading, as the prose of Milton
is hard. Like the utterances of
"the God-gifted organ voice of Eng
land," so the periods of Vane, often
full of certain long-drawn music,
do not readily yield up their con-
tents to the somewhat discrept
comprehension of our less mascu-
line age. Across the thought drift
obscurities, dimly and solemnly
luminous from fanatic heats that
! glowed deep within the soul of the
Puritan enthusiast. A great idea,
however, is clearly outlined-the
presentment, perhaps, gaining i'm
pressiveness from the vague rhapso-
dizing by which it is here and there
attended, as peak, draped in va
por, which Is aglow from unseen
volcano fires, grows sublime. In
the midst of such circumstances, for
the first time in the history of the
world, the constitutional idea finds
exposition n. Y. Nation.